Quotations and aphorisms by Antonio Tabucchi:

My books are about losers, about people who've lost their way and are engaged in a search.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I don't know whether these people are going to find themselves, but as they live their lives they have no choice but to face up to the image others have of them. They're forced to look at themselves in a mirror, and they often manage to glimpse something of themselves.~Antonio Tabucchi

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.~Antonio Tabucchi

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Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual.~Antonio Tabucchi

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In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.~Antonio Tabucchi

It's very useful when politicians have doubts because there are so many choices to be made in the world.~Antonio Tabucchi

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No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job.~Antonio Tabucchi

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An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I don't want to promote my own image either. I don't like going on television or mixing in literary circles.~Antonio Tabucchi

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My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself.~Antonio Tabucchi

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Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I've always been drawn to tormented people full of contradictions.~Antonio Tabucchi

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.~Antonio Tabucchi

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People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I was born in the Second World War during the Nazi invasion of my country.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I prefer insomnia to anaesthesia.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.~Antonio Tabucchi

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I vividly remember the stories my grandfather told me about the carnage of the First World War, which people tend to forget was one of the worst massacres in human history.~Antonio Tabucchi

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Xenophobia manifests itself especially against civilizations and cultures that are weak because they lack economic resources, means of subsistence or land. So nomadic people are the first targets of this kind of aggression.~Antonio Tabucchi

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There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.~Antonio Tabucchi

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But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.~Antonio Tabucchi

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As a writer, I've always been interested in others.~Antonio Tabucchi

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But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.~Antonio Tabucchi